Get Rid of Napolitano
As is well-known by now, last week there was a suicide bomber attack on a plane from Amsterdam to Detroit. The attack, fortunately, failed, as the explosive device failed to go off. The alleged terrorist is suspected to be connected to at least one terrorist organization. He claimed, initially at least, to be connected to Al Qaeda.
This, obviously, is both good news and bad. First, it’s good in that nobody died, a terrorist was captured and now we know where to concentrate more efforts on the international scale. The bad news is that some people are just plain stupid, including Think Progress’ Matthew Yglesias, who wrote the other day that, “Ultimately, it does no favors to anyone to blow this sort of thing out of proportion. The United States could not, of course, be ?devastated? by anything resembling this scheme. We ought to be clear on that fact. We want to send the message around the world that this sort of vile attempt to slaughter innocent people is not, at the end of the day, anything resembling a serious challenge to American power. It?s attempted murder, it?s wrong, we should try to stop it, but it?s really not much more than that.”
Even worse, however, is the reaction from Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. “The system worked,” according to Napolitano. Given that it took a failed attempt plus civilian passengers to subdue the attempted terrorist, I’d say the system failed. Plus, the guy was on a watch list, which is particularly poignant given his father reported him as a potential threat two years ago. (See the video of Napolitano’s inane comments here.)
To quote Jonah Goldberg from The Corner yesterday, “If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.” Personally, I think “man-caused disasters” are a worse threat than conservatives, Secretary Napolitano. You had better figure that out soon, or your job will be gone. Unfortunately, this will probably not happen until after Americans have died as a result of your incompetence. Yes, as they said on the Real Clear Politics blog, it’s your job to reassure the American public as part of an overall security standpoint. However- and I’ll finish with a quote from the RCP blog- “…she should be smart enough to find a way of doing that without treating the American people like a bunch of morons and dupes.”
This was originally posted at THE LOBBYIST.
Update: According to The Washington Monthly blog, President Obama has been paying close attention to the Al Qaeda threat from Yemen. Kudos to President Obama for doing so.
Update II: The Heritage Foundation’s Morning Bell points out the continued failure by the Obama administration to take the proper steps to protect this country from terrorists, and offers three steps going forward.
Update III: A friend pointed out on Facebook that I misspelled Secretary Napolitano’s name- it is corrected.
Update IIII (last one, I hope): Two links from where I posted this at Race42012 showing Secretary Napolitano backtracking on her statements about the system working well. Too little, too late, I think.
TODAY Video: Napolitano: Prevention system ?failed miserably?
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/26184891/vp/34608370#34608370
Security System Failed, Napolitano Acknowledges
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/us/29terror.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print
Real News Left Behind
It was 10:10 on Sunday evening, and I decided to see what the leading?news stories were on CNN?s and Fox?s respective websites. Having seen Yahoo News? top story being about Tiger Woods? car accident the other day, I suspected I knew what the answer was. Turns out, I was right. The stories were in spots designed to get major, first–or-second-glance attention.
Now, to be fair, Fox and CNN also had big stories about the police shooting (both), a woman who is helping women get mammograms (CNN), a story about AIDS guidelines (Fox) and Fox had its required “Support a Republican” story about Senator Lugar (R-IN) and his?thoughts about delaying health care reform until?”next year, the same way we put cap and trade and climate change, and talk now about the essentials: the war and money.” However, Fox had the Woods “story” on its top four list on its site, and CNN had it first on its “Latest News” list. (Oddly enough, MSNBC had the Woods “story” listed as third in its Sports section, and I actually missed it the first two times I scanned the page. MSNBC’s main section covered the police shootings, the economy, Afghanistan, Detroit’s economic needs, where investors are focusing this week and the Steelers-Ravens game. Not too bad for a liberal rag of a “news” source.)
Money drives news, as it should- news needs money to survive, after all- but once again our news is showing just how misplaced American priorities and dollars are. Stories that cover Honduras, Afghanistan, Iraq, Russia, China, the recession, the police shootings, health care reform efforts and other important news should be at the top of the list the vast majority of the time. Instead, they are pushed aside by non-news and entertainment.
This is an old rant, and says nothing new (except that MSNBC actually did a good job at something). Should those of us who care keep hammering at America’s lack of real world knowledge and news awareness, or are we wasting our time? Will we as a nation pull our heads out of *the clouds* and at least try to be aware of the world around us? Please?
